Short answer? Yes, you can win the auctions on penny bid sites if you have a strategy to follow and are patient… very patient.
Consider the following while researching penny bid sites:
- How popular is each site?
- What appear to be the peak hours for bidding on each site?
- Are you able to observe “aggressive” bidders? (those that are willing to spend a LOT of penny bid credits to win)
There are strategies that can increase your chances of winning penny bid auctions that apply to most sites:
(A) Aggressive Bidding: Doing immediate counter-bids is one of the best tactics as it can intimidate other bidders, thereby increasing your chances of winning from someone else’s inaction or hesitancy. However, aggressive bidding doesn’t mean that you will bid again and again blindly. Focus on swiftly rebidding after an opponent has bid. The more you rebid, the better are the chances that other “watchers” (those who don’t bid until the penny bid is down to 1 cent) will see that you are aggressive and allow another aggressive or novice bidder to waist their bids. This situation causes complacency, which leads to mistakes (e.g. distraction) by other opponents that allow you to win.
(B) Late Entry Bids: In this strategy, the idea is to watch and wait until the clock is near zero to place your 1 cent penny bid. Here, ideal timing and good observation can make you win the bid. However, only use this strategy if you have a fast internet connection that rarely experiences hiccups or slight delays periodically.
(c) Cheap Items: You’re more likely to win items when there are less competitors. There are likely to be less competitors when there is less interest in the item, such as odd or inexpensive items. Check past penny bid auctions for a pattern of items that don’t normally sell for much in comparison to its value.
(D) Early Bids: In this tactic, bid immediately after the item reaches within one minute of closing. Often times, bidders will assume there will be some early bidding that will raise the price to a few dollars, for instance, at which point they plan to ‘get in on the action’ without wasting a bunch of their own bids. The fault in this strategy is that if too many people have the same strategy, the one bidder that does bid early can win without any competition. This is why you’ll see some auctions that close for a very low penny bid amount, such as $0.21. An extension to this tactic is to bid up to 20-50 credits from the time the penny bid auction reaches the first timeout point. An investment 20 to 50 penny bids across multiple auctions is more likely to get wins than chasing after a high-end item with all of your bids against other competitors that also commit all of their bid credits.
(E) Off Peak Bids: Observe the peaks and lulls of the penny bid web site. If a majority of the bidders are in one time zone, there will likely be a drop-off of bids when that time zone would normally go to sleep at night or just before they wake up in the morning. Noticing at which times the competition is less on your favorite penny bid site is more likely to give you a low-competition opportunity and increase your chances of winning your next penny bid auction.
